The hostilities between India and Pakistan have had no impact on the bonhomie within the UAE cricket team, which comprises a mix of expatriates from the two countries, skipper Muhammad Waseem insisted as he evaded queries on their rather dramatic and delayed Asia Cup clash against Pakistan.
The UAE cricket team has an equal number of players of Indian and Pakistani origin with Simranjeet Singh, Rahul Chopra, Harshit Kaushik, Dhruv Parashar, and Alishan Sharafu on one side and Multan-born skipper Waseem, Haider Ali, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Rohid and Asif Khan making the other half.
“The team is like a family even in the face of the tense relations between the two countries,” said Waseem. The UAE captain said the turn of events involving India and Pakistan had no impact on inter-personal relationships within the team. “No, we don’t even talk about it as we play a lot of cricket together. There is no Indian and no Pakistani for us. We play for the UAE. We play as a family and live as a family," said Waseem.
The Pakistan team had delayed the start of the match against the UAE on Wednesday after the ICC rejected its demand to remove Pycroft. The players eventually showed up after claiming to have got an apology from Pycroft.
UAE lost to Pakistan by 41 runs despite doing a good job with the ball and restricting the opposition to 146 for 9. Waseem's men could have appealed for a walkover after the delay caused by Pakistan as the hosts had reported to the stadium on time, which is two hours before the scheduled start.
Also read: Pak turn up for UAE tie after much ado as ICC backs Pycroft
However, the Pakistan-born Waseem clarified that he never thought of asking for such a decision. "First of all, this is not our responsibility or our work. We were focusing on our game. We came here to play the game, and we did that," he said, stressing that his team was not affected by the delay caused by the Pakistan team.
"Didn't matter if we were playing on time or we were playing late. Doesn't matter if we are playing at 6:30 or 7:30 pm. This is not our job, but the organiser's," he said. Waseem steered clear of any controversy by adopting a cautious approach while being bombarded with tricky questions.
Asked if their pre-match routine was disturbed, he posed a counter-question, "Watching our bowling performance, did you feel that?" Waseem played in the Pakistan Super League in 2021 as a replacement player for Multan Sultans, while in 2024 he was picked by Islamabad United, but couldn't take part due to international commitments.
Pakistan pacer Haris Rauf, who got a couple of wickets on his return to the team, said, “See, I wasn't feeling the pressure as these things weren't under my control. This is the PCB's headache and they can manage it well.”
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